Hebrews 12:12-13 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.
The author quotes a portion of Proverbs 4:26 and gives a summarizing exhortation to the readers. The simple point is that to over come the troubles we face in this life, we must do two things: strengthen ourselves through faith and follow the way of righteousness. Hands represent the things we do and the knees represent the places we go. What makes our hands droop and our knees weak? Since this exhortation comes on the heals of the discussion about faith, this could be weak faith. When we takes our eyes off of the author of faith, Jesus, we will get ourselves tangled up with sin and temptation. Our spiritual and eventually physical strength will grow weak, opening us up to even more temptation and sin. The way to strengthen our faith is to look to Jesus and run the race of obediently moving towards the promises God makes in Jesus. That is the only way to victorious Christian living. If we set any other goal or are distracted in this journey, we will find ourselves stumbling and struggling.
Straight paths are those that are clear and move towards the goal. The only path that is straight is the righteous one. The righteous path is defined as walking in the way of holiness and peace, which are mentioned in the next verse. This path is determined by God’s will. It is straight because nothing will distract a person who walks on it. The goal is clear: to be in God’s presence through Jesus Christ. Another way to state this is simply heaven! Our goal is to make it to heaven. The only path that will take us there is Jesus Christ.
There are times, however, when we do stumble and fall. Our hands are preoccupied and our knees are weak. We are human. Therefore, we need an advocate. We have one in Jesus our High Priest who has walked the same journey and come out the other side. He walks beside us in our lameness and hold us up so that we can finish the race that is set before us.
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